Jim Martin's Blog

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I’m very thankful for all of the people who prayed for "Tech Support" the last few days. How wonderful to share a prayer request for someone in a country far from this one and see an outpouring of people who pray. I was very encouraged to see your response to her.

I continue to be very grateful to all of you who read these posts. Some of you comment occasionally and some very regularly. I have known some of you for a long time. Others of you now seem like longtime friends as I have interacted with you through comments and even e-mail for several years. Then, of course, some of you are fairly new to this blog and I am thankful that you are here.

This blog began four years ago. At the time, I did not know what to expect from anyone who might be reading. I did know that writing helped me think through what was on my mind/heart. Since then, you have been a constant source of encouragement. Some of you comment occasionally or regularly. Others have sent notes or have indicated on Facebook that a particular post was meaningful.

I like this medium. It enables me to write something that I hope will be useful to you. Sometimes these posts originate in what I’ve read or in some particular experience. At other times, I am thinking about some dimension of life and choose to write about it.

Ultimately, I would hope that the posts generally reflect the name of this blog. After all, I do believe that we are only fully human when we seek and hunger after God. I really believe this.

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Update: You might enjoy my Facebook page or even Twitter. I have found both to be very useful. You might enjoy browsing through some of my bookmarks on my del.icio.us page. I use this regularly and am constantly adding new bookmarks.

You might enjoy looking at God-Hungry Live for new videos that have been added. Videos are added to this collection very, very regularly. A number have been added in the last two weeks. (Go to the top, middle portion of the page and look for "playlist" to see the videos that are available for viewing.)

For the past few days, I have been at the Lipscomb Preaching Seminar, held at David Lipscomb University in Nashville. What a wonderful and helpful few days. I had the opportunity to hear such people as Walter Breuggemann, Brian McLaren, Cleo LaRue, John York, and Mark Hamilton. There was also the opportunity to visit with many old friends and to make a few new friends. This is a wonderful seminar that was encouraging and very helpful as well.

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On the right-hand sidebar, you might notice some pieces of this blog that have just been updated:

1. God-Hungry Live was updated with videos of Scot McKnight as well as Marva Dawn. (God-Hungry Live consists of videos of various Christian speakers, thinkers, etc.)

2. You might also enjoy looking at "10 Significant Books." This is simply a list of ten books that have been helpful to me in some way.

Yesterday, I was on my Facebook page and was looking at my list of "friends." If you are not familiar with this, each person has a friends list. Before someone is added to this list, you must request their friendship or they must request yours. As a result, you end up with the most interesting list of friends.

What makes it interesting? Here, in this one place, are pictures of people I have known at different times and places in my life.

Friends I graduated from high school with.

Friends I have known at various churches where we’ve been.

Friends of my children. Parents of my children’s friends.

Friends in Waco and in many other places.

Friends I have known for decades and those I have known only for a few months.

Friends I have known through my work.

Friends I know through this blog.

Friends I have met through other friends.

It is amazing to see pictures of these people, some of whom I have not seen in many years, on a page with people I now see on a regular basis.

Yesterday, I was looking at these pictures and thought about some of these people I have interacted with at some level over the years. I thought about how blessed I really am.

What about you?

Maybe you had coffee with a good friend the other day.

Perhaps you called a friend yesterday whom you had not seen in years.

Maybe you recently invested in your relationship with your daughter or son.

You may have recently expressed to a friend how much he means to you.

Yes, I know that some people rarely, if ever, take the initiative to connect. In some relationships, you may feel as if you are the only one making the effort to initiate any kind of time together. Sometimes friendships just are not sustained over a period of time, for whatever reason. I realize that these can be real issues in friendships.

Nevertheless, I don’t want these issues to distract me right now from just how grateful I feel for certain people in my life at various moments. Unbelievable!

What about you? Can you look back at your life and see the incredible investment that some have made in you? Are there some people who have been significant encouragers?